U.S. Justice Department to investigate shootings by Miami police More than a year after the first of seven black men was fatally shot by Miami police, sparking an outcry in the black community, the feds will scrutinize the department. The U.S. Justice Department will investigate whether Miami police violated the constitutional rights of seven black men who were shot to death by officers over an eight-month span, raising tensions in the inner city and sparking demands for an independent review. The civil investigation known as a pattern and practice probe will examine Miami police policies and training involving deadly force. The goal: to determine if systemic flaws made shootings of black men more likely, rather than unfortunate, last-choice actions, as the officers supporters maintain. A source close to the investigation confirmed Wednesday night that Thomas E. Perez, head of Justices civil rights division, and Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer will announce the investigation during a press conference in downtown Miami Thursday morning. Family members of the deceased, church leaders and activists have been invited to meet with Ferrer Wednesday afternoon, but they were not told why. They reacted with relief when told the news. Oh, thats great, great, really good, said Sheila McNeil, whose unarmed son Travis McNeil, 28, was shot to death in his car in Little Haiti Feb. 10 by Officer Reinaldo Goyo. The officer said McNeil was driving erratically. No weapon was ever found. Im just glad to know its not forgotten, McNeil told The Miami Herald. Right now I dont know more than I did the night he died, so Im just waiting to hear what they have to say. But Nathaniel Wilcox, executive director of People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality, or PULSE, who has stood with many of the dead mens families during a series of emotional public meetings, criticized federal authorities for not opening a criminal investigation into the shooting deaths. They spanned July 2010 to February 2011. We think they really took too long and we feel abandoned, Wilcox said. We expected the Obama administration to do a lot more and a lot quicker than they did. The Justice Department will not conduct criminal investigations into the seven shootings, which are under review by the Miami-Dade State Attorneys Office. But Justice will look into the Miami Police Departments training methods, leadership and practices. Any adverse findings could lead to court-enforced reforms, but more frequently, Justice works with a police department to iron out any problems. The U.S. Attorneys Office in Miami declined comment Wednesday. Acting Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa did not respond to interview requests. But spokesman Delrish Moss said the department is being revamped under the new chief, who assumed the post in September and is conducting a top to bottom review of everything, from training to hiring. Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado did not return calls. The impending investigation marks the second time in a decade that federal authorities have conducted an investigation into alleged systemic violations of constitutional rights by Miami police officers. In 2002, Justice conducted a much broader civil probe, concluding in 2003 that the department had serious flaws in the way it conducted searches and seizures, used firearms, defined use of force and worked with police dogs. The inquiry began at the citys request after several controversial police shootings. However, the report did not reach any conclusion about whether the police departments policies caused civil rights violations. Since the latest spate of shootings began in July 2010, the public and families of the slain men have clamored for answers, repeatedly seeking transparency from police and the Miami-Dade state attorneys office. The police, under the leadership of then-Chief Miguel Exposito, who was terminated in September for insubordination, took heat for keeping quiet. Exposito even refused to turn over information to a civilian oversight panel when it sought details on the first shooting, of DeCarlos Moore in Overtown in July 2010. Exposito blamed the shootings on a turf war created after his officers took guns off the streets. He also criticized State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle for taking too long to close out her investigations, ham-stringing his ability to speak about the shootings. Friction over the shootings intensified as the number of incidents grew. The NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union called for a federal investigation. In late February, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson asked U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, the nations top law enforcement officer, to look into Miami police policies involving deadly force. Regalado also requested an investigation, in August. On Tuesday, Wilson called the investigation a step in the right direction. I think its important because of the injustice that happened, Wilson told The Herald. I want [Miami police] to respect each other, and drop the racist tactics in training. The ACLU praised the development. We have a crisis in this community where the police department is too quick to use deadly force, especially aimed at young black men, and it doesnt have the mechanism to control itself, said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. Locally, the state attorneys office has closed only one criminal review, clearing the officer in the Moore shooting. Police said Moore disobeyed an order to stay put, and returned to his car where officers thought they saw him holding a shiny object, possibly a weapon. No weapon was found at the scene. The other men killed by police were Joell Lee Johnson, Tarnorris Tyrell Gaye, Gibson Junior Belizaire, Brandon Foster, Lynn Weatherspoon, and McNeil, who was followed by police from a lounge on Northwest 79th Street. McNeils friend, Kareem Williams, was shot too, but survived. The Justice investigation into Miami police will be the 18th being conducted by the Obama administration, which has stepped up civil rights investigations across the country. The federal effort has won praise from advocacy groups and experts on police brutality. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said recently that the investigations into local police are really a cornerstone of our work. He was speaking to reporters about a Justice report on Puerto Rico, which accused officers of widespread brutality, unconstitutional arrests and targeting people of Dominican descent. That followed a Justice Department report in March that said the New Orleans Police Department repeatedly violated constitutional rights by using excessive force, illegally arresting people and targeting black and gay residents. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/...-department-to-investigate.html#ixzz1dyxKHKxZ http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/16/2505941/us-justice-department-to-investigate.html The cops seem to be surrounded. OWS and thugs in the front. Holder, the Just Us Dept. and "Our People" in the rear, and Media choppers overhead..... Why do they try at all?
Why police officer deaths rose 37 percent in 2010 The number of officers killed in the line of duty can fluctuate from year to year. But the group releasing the new police officer figures offers several reasons for the climb this year. The FBI says violent crime is down in the United States, but don't tell the nation's police officers that. The number of police officers killed in the line of duty rose by 37 percent in 2010 from the year before, presenting a complicated picture of the danger on American streets. Variances in the number of police officers killed from year to year are common. In 2009, 117 were killed, a 50-year low, compared with 160 killed in 2010 59 of them in shootouts. But in five of the past 10 years, the number of police officer deaths topped 160, making the decade almost as dangerous for police as the street wars of the 1970s, when the average number of officers killed per year hovered around 200. And in the gangster heyday of the 1920s, about 150 died every year. Among the reasons cited by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which publicized the figures Tuesday: fewer officers doing more work; a rise in the number of distracted drivers, which makes traffic detail more dangerous; and heightened tensions between desperate criminals and police. US News 2010: Take our quiz "Every cop that's slain or otherwise killed in the line of duty is a horrendous situation, but the numbers fluctuate so much percentage-wise because it really is a low-base-rate phenomenon. So even a little movement from one year to the next can produce a high percentage of difference over the previous year," says Lorie Fridell, a criminologist who studies police behavior at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "But it is interesting to note that the slaying of cops has increased, but it's not moving in accordance with the violent crime rate." There are about 800,000 active local, state, and federal law-enforcement officers in the US. In 2010, officers were killed in 30 states as well as Puerto Rico, with the California Highway Patrol and the Chicago Police Department experiencing the most deaths. As in previous years with large numbers of officers killed, so-called cluster killings more than one officer death at a time helped drive up the statistics. For example, in May, two police officers working an antidrug beat in West Memphis, Ark., were killed by two men using AK-47 rifles, according to the Associated Press. The two men were later killed by police in a shootout in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Multiple officer killings also included a June incident in Tampa, where two police officers were killed during an early-morning traffic stop. And in an August incident in the Alaska village of Hoonah, a man allegedly killed two officers in front of his home. One possible cause for the rise in police deaths is that society appears to be producing a small contingent of violent criminals who are ready to take on authority figures. "A more brazen, coldblooded criminal element is on the prowl in America, and they don't think twice about killing a cop," fund chairman Craig W. Floyd said, according to United Press International. Fund officials also cite as possible causes slashed police budgets. Although it's tough to prove on a general basis, Ms. Fridell says research shows that "officers having to work overtime and double shifts can produce significant officer fatigue, and that fatigue could impact their driving abilities, maybe producing crashes." She continues, "Or it could impact their decisionmaking in potentially violent encounters." The number of police officers killed in traffic incidents rose from 51 in 2009 to 73 in 2010 a phenomenon that can be linked both to more distracted drivers and to more distracted police officers, says Fridell. With cellphones, mobile data terminals, and other police equipment around them in their cruisers, "there are many opportunities for officers to be not attending to driving," she says. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/1228/Why-police-officer-deaths-rose-37-percent-in-2010
Dogedly pursue investigations surrounding police/"my people" interactions.... Remain opaque and deflective in regards to administrative actions that knowingly placed police and citizens in harms way by actively placing thousands of weapons in the hands of violent drug cartels. Actively sue states that seek to stem the tide of illegal immigration that places police and citizens in harms way. Nah...nothing to see here. Move along.
I'm still waiting on a DOJ investigation on the flash mob violence perpatrated by Black youth over the summer months.
